La metamorfosis

The Metamorphosis

“In science one tries to tell people, in such way as to be understood by everyone, something that no one ever knew before. But in poetry it’s the exact opposite.” (Franz Kafka, par. 20)

Franz Kafka has always been a reticent type of person, although reserved and lonely for most of his life Kafka is also extremely sentimental, and confused with himself. Following thequote shown above we discover he is also highly secretive and that most of his words and writings go beyond foreground, caring a second message between the lines. It is expressed on Margaret’s Sönser Breen analytical essay that Kafka had homosexual preferences, and I will support her point with the following arguments.

“The early nineteenth-century movement known as expressionism wasbased on the belief that inner reality, or a person’s thoughts and feelings, are more important that the “objective” reality outside the person. In short, the response of an individual is more important that the object or situation that causes the response. Expressionist writers, painters, and other artists tend to portray this inner reality through the use of symbolic rather that realisticcharacters, exaggeration, distortion, nightmarish imagery, and fantasy.” (Study Guide for The Metamorphosis, pg. 9)

As an expressionist writer Kafka has found a way to be transparent with him, he can finally release his affliction expressing what he truly thinks and feels in a disguised way, without nobody understanding what he really meant or what he was rally trying to promulgate.

“Kafka´snarrative point of view in The Metamorphosis is called limited third-person. He tells us Gregor´s thoughts and feelings only. We do not learn what the other characters are thinking or feeling unless they show us by their words or actions. In fact, much of the novella is a kind of interior monologue of Gregor’s thoughts and feelings, told by the narrator. This style has the effect of making Gregor’sinner reality seen more important than the actually occurs in the world around him.” (Study Guide for The Metamorphosis, pg. 16)

We can conclude that Kafka is actually trying to say something in The Metamorphosis specially after we have learned it is written in limited third-person, assuming only that he reflects directly with the main character who experienced the Metamorphosis, Gregor Samsa.“When Gregor Samsa woke up one morning from unsettling dreams, he found himself changed in his bed into a monstrous vermin” (3). From the beginning of Kafka’s novella, there is never any question that Gregor is some kind of cultural “other”; only the extent to which the people around him, most notably his family will be able to recognize his humanity is at issue.” (Reading for TheConstruction of the Unspeakable: Teaching Kafka’s Metamorphosis, pg. 4)
In order to continue we must first understand and have the same concept of what vermin means:
Vermin: “the term itself derives from the Latin vermis, meaning worm, and originally had reference to the vermiform larvae of certain insects, many of which infest foodstuffs. The term is also used as an extremely pejorativecharacterization of a particular class or group of people as inferior and subhuman, and often considered social parasites. Application of the term can be wide, having been applied over the centuries in different languages, to various groups, and its use is usually based on a perception that the target group's views are "disease-like," or that such groups exist out of sociological balance with the commonsociety.” (Wikipedia)
The question here is, why would Kafka choose a giant insect to be the animal that would represent Gregor or Kafka himself? Well it is known that most of human beings recoil from them, now if you add a little of size, even more will they be scared. As a novel that was written and published in 1912 and with the ideals of those times writing about homosexuality would have been...